Slippery slate, wet Welsh hills, borderline hypothermia... it must be Slateman!

 I haven't blogged in ages... years in fact. It's not that I have been in sporting hybernation, I've done loads, it's just that time is a commodity of which I am short since having children and so it's hard enough to fit in the training for events, let alone finding time to blog about them. However, for this one I feel compelled to make the effort as I want to document it whilst it's still raw.

Two days ago, 8th June 2025, I took on the Slateman Legend Triathlon. This is a half-iron / 70.3 distance event based in Llanberis, North Wales. I am no stranger to North Wales; I am no stranger to the Slateman event; I am no stranger to the half-iron distance here. I did the Slateman Savage in 2016 - a double event over 2 days, with a sprint triathlon on the Saturday and a standard on the Sunday. I also did my first and, up until Sunday, only half-iron triathlon to date, The Brutal, in Llanberis in 2017. In fact, I won the thing by 25 minutes that day. But that was pre-children, when I actually had time to put in the training that an event of this magnitude demands. Since having my first child in February 2019 I have been a full-time stay-at-home Mum. Last September, my second child started attending nursery 3 days a week, meaning I have slightly more time to train. I know of other Mums who jump back into huge training volume very soon after giving birth. We all know the well-documented tales of Mums who do ultras and breastfeed and pump milk at checkpoints - and such is their right - but that avenue was never for me. I did not have children to go out and leave them for hours on end while I pursue what is, after all, a hobby, not a career. Going out for longer than an hour at a time has always sat uneasily with me, so that ruled out any longer distance events that require hours out on the bike. BTW, I'm not judging Mums who do do this, everyone to make their own call based on their own circumstances, but it just wasn't what I wanted to do. Even with my children at school / nursery 3 days a week, I still did way less volume in preparation for this race than I did for the Brutal.... plus I'm older now (42 next week) and in early menopause, so my training regime has had to adapt.

So, what training did I do? Well, my winter was spent focussed on the European duathlon championships in Rumia, Poland, which I completed at the end of April over the the standard distance (10k run - 40k bike - 5k run) and where I managed to achieve my A-goal of coming away with the gold medal in my age group. After a week recovering, that left me with just over 3 weeks specific training for an extremely tough half-iron triathlon... not a lot of time! I had a decent cycling base built up from the duathlon training, but most of that was done indoors on my Wattbike. I now needed to actually get my arse out of the door on a proper bike for longer rides. I managed 1 x 39 mile ride, 2 x 30 mile rides and a handful of 20 milers. Somewhat short of the 57 miles with 4300ft of climbing that Slateman Legend throws at you.

Swimming, well, I make no attempt to obscure the fact that this is not my favourite triathlon discipline. I swim semi-decently in a pool, but it all goes to pot the moment I put on a wetsuit in open water. I also loathe swimming in the sea and we have no lakes around here to train in. So my swim training consisted of a 1500m pool swim most weeks and the one brief ten minute dip in the sea at Sidmouth, mainly to make sure my wetsuit still fits me as I haven't worn it since before having children 7 years ago. Again, not exactly ideal for a swim that ended up being 2100m. The biggest issue for me is coping with the cold on the swim. I seem to suffer with the cold more than the majority of people, and as the Slateman doesn't allow the use of neoprene gloves, whereas the Brutal did, I really suffered... more on this in a moment.

Running. I typically average 20 miles a week over 4 runs. 2 easy runs (9m/m), one hills session and one parkrun at upper-end tempo (6:30m/m ish). My longest runs tend to only be 6 milers. For this I upped that to 2 x 8 milers... again, short of the 14 miles with 2600ft elevation I'd face at Slateman!

Further annoyance in my final race build up came in the form of illness. After a really decent spell on the health front, some hideous chesty, phlegmy cough and laryngitis chose to strike just 6 days prior to the race. It wiped me out the entire week, enforcing a 5 day long taper of doing absolutely nothing beyond necking back Lemip.

This all sounds like the makings of an under-prepared idiot, ready to launch herself off a precipice in blissful ignorance, armed not with a parachute but with a can-do attitude and clutching a big, fat bottle of denial. Kind of correct. However, I do have some things in my favour. I know the terrain. I lived in North Wales for 9 years, the last of those spent in Llanberis itself, running over these slate trails every week. (I was just starting out as a runner then, in 2010, and wouldn't take up multisport until 5 years later). As it's such a long way from Devon we don't get to go back as much as I'd like and so every return visit feels like a gift and I want to make the most out of it, so the longer the distance, the more time spent running and biking amidst that beautiful landscape. Also in my favour: I am a stubborn little shit. Seriously, with me it's always 95% head, 5% body at these events. I am competitive, determined, despise quitting, and I seem to have an incredibly high tolerance to prolonged pain and discomfort. The longer and tougher the event, the more it suits the mentally strong rather than those who simply rely on physical prowess to muscle their way through. Of course you can't sign up to this sort of thing on a total whim, but I did go into it hoping that my resilience would compensate for the less than ideal amount of targeted training I'd done.  I also have a natural endurance engine, not a speed one, so my pace doesn't drop off much as the distance increase. 

And so to race day. This was my first time going away from home without my children. They have always accompanied me to all my other events, including to the 3 overseas European duathlons I've done. This alone felt very strange. I took my Mum with me instead, which was nice as we never get to spend much quality time together these days. I was awake before the alarm at 5am. Coffee, Lemsip (as still feeling the residual effects of the week-long lurg), and 2 porridge pots down the hatch. We were staying in the Victoria Hotel adjacent to the lake, so it was just a 5 minute walk to transition and racking, with my wetsuit already on. This year they held an iron-distance triathlon alongside the Legend, standard and sprint races for the first time. Those guys started at 5:15am and were just exiting the water as we were having our race briefing. As an ominous sign of things to come, one poor girl was being carted off to the medical tent with hypothermia; her race sadly over.

A bit about Llyn Padarn, the lake. It's big, VERY deep and always cold, even in high summer, because it's constantly filled with fresh rain run off from the surrounding mountains. It's about 6 degrees colder than the sea currently is. The edges of it feel ok, but out in the middle, the deep bit, it's perishingly cold. The horn blasted and we were off. Shocked by the cold as I plunged my head in for the first stroke, I started to gasp for breath and it would take me a good ten minutes to get the breathing back under control. It was a 1 lap swim and the yellow marker buoys at the far end looked a bloody long way away. My hands got colder and colder and soon my fingers did this weird spasming thing whereby they split open and I couldn't close them no matter what, so this meant I had a really useless catch and so my pace slowed more than ever. At the far turnaround point I glanced back to see how many swimmers were behind me.... not many, but I wasn't last either. Maybe 75% were in front and 25% behind me. Keep going. No choice. It felt like that swim went on forever. Exiting the water, frozen but relieved, the worst bit  was over, in 48 minutes. When I did the Brutal, over the same distance in the same lake, I did it in 42 minutes, but neoprene gloves were permitted for that. Game changer. 

 

Relieved to now be out of the water and able to get going and warm up, I now hit the next unexpected consequence of that cold, slow swim: my fingers were too frozen to function. I got to transition and I just couldn't do anything. I tried to put on my cycling jersey, but couldn't grip the zip. I tried to put on my gloves, but couldn't coordinate my frozen fingers into them. I got my bike shoes on, but couldn't do up the straps. All I could do was stand there swearing and looking pathetic, until eventually a lovely official took pity on me and came to my assistance. He did up my jacket and shoes and put on my gloves for me. Even with this eventual rescue, I still took 9 minutes in transition: a new record! Unhooked my bike from the rack, grateful to finally be leaving, and the next disaster hit: my main water-bottle holder sheered off; the bolt just snapped. I had to abandon it and face the cycle on just one bottle, and, unfortunately, not the main one on the down tube that I am used to grabbing from, but on the seat tube which is far more awkwardly positioned. Cue next dilemma: my fingers were too frozen to extract the bottle from the cage, neither could I get at my gels or flapjack bites. This was all going rather tits up...

Finally, I get to the climb up the Llanberis Pass and I could try to warm my body up. 1 hour into the race at this point and I have as yet been unable to take on any water, gels or food. Thoughts start drifting to whether or not I'll be able to complete this. Am I being stupid attempting to? I have spent the week ill and now I am bordering on hypothermia. I am a mother now; I have responsibilities, kids at home who rely on me. Am I being reckless and selfish? Then, the next thought, indeed a thought that also struck me in my first foray into Slateman back in 2016 when it started hailing as I descended down the back of the pass towards Capel Curig and I was equally as cold: but I haven't seen any marshalls, so what am I going to do? Just shiver pathetically at the side of the road? Might as well keep going.

I knew my friends Sian and Nigel were waiting for me outside their house in Tregarth, at the 22 mile point. I told myself if I hadn't warmed up by then, I could stop and ask them for a lift back to Llanberis and pull the plug on it. I was just starting to warm up a little, to the extent that I could now safely retrieve my water bottle without risking dropping it, when an almighty downpour hit in the Ogwen Valley, wind and rain battered our faces, and I was once again freezing. So cold my back and neck muscles were spasaming. I had predicted averaging around 17-18mph on the bike. Ha! I couldn't even come down off the hoods, I was frozen in a very un-aero position. Just keeping moving forward was the new target - all thoughts of putting the power down gone with the Welsh wind. All I could think of was the deep hot bath, that I would have traded my bike for at this point, back at the hotel!

Tregarth; I see Sian and Nigel. Nigel ready with his camera, like he was when I did Slateman in 2016, Snowdona Race in 2011, 2015 and 2023; Snowdonia Marathon in 2011, and the Brutal in 2017. My good friends, out waiting to cheer me through. Seeing them, I found myself pulling over to the side of the road and unclipping. On the verge of tears, "What am I doing? I don't think I can carry on, I'm just so cold. And I need a wee. I'm a mother now; what am I doing? This is just miserable." A big hug from Sian and I was all but ready to dismount and head in the direction of their warm house and put their kettle on! Then I asked, as I'd no idea up until now, "How many women have gone through?". The reply came: "Not many, maybe only 4 or 5". That was what I needed to hear. Competitive Ellie surged to the fore. "Right, then I'm carrying on". I clipped back in, give them a wave, and I was off. Come on Ellie. You haven't left your children for 5 days, paid £230 to enter, driven 7 hours to get here to throw in the towel. Get your feeble arse in gear and get on with what you came here to do.

The image that speaks a thousand words... leaving Tregarth after my pep talk from Sian and Nigel. I was all ready to quit just before this point.

The sun then peeped through the clouds. It only made a brief one minute appearance, before vanishing again for the rest the day, but the fleeting warmth of the sun on my back and feeling buoyed by seeing my friends was the boost I needed. Now we get to work. No more faffing. Let's focus. 

I had to make a brief pitstop at the aid station at the 30 mile point to refill my one surviving bottle, but after that I knew I was past half way and the long, luscious descent to Beddgelert beckonned. At this point I really needed a wee, but I wasn't about to stop for a third time, so I lifted myself off the saddle and just let it flow.... it's not glamourous, triathlon, but when you gotta go, you gotta go! I past the entrance to Snowdonia Riding Stables - the place where I rode and kept my horse, Arrie, for many years when I lived here. I only took up running in 2010; prior to that I was an avid horse rider and so I felt pangs of nostalgia seeing the sign for the stables and recalling my student life at Bangor University some 20 years ago. Onto the drops for the first time in over 30 miles and finally the speed was increasing, as was the warmth in my body. (My feet, however, would remain like blocks of ice until 3 miles into the run!) I was starting to pick people off. By now we had been joined on route by the standard triathlon and duathlon competitors, so I was looking out for riders with pink bibs, who were my competition in the Legend. I had overtaken a few ladies early on but had gone a long while now without seeing any others, so figured I was still sat in around 4th place. A lovely tailwind pushed us up to Pen-y-Gwryd, then the turn to the last big climb back up the pass. Cresting the summit, the wind hit with force. It was a vicious, teasing wind, the likes of which you only get in the mountains, where the terrain disrupts the flow and so it swirls in erratic vortices and seemingly attacks you from all angles. One minute I was being buffeted left, the next right, then my wheel would start to flutter and I could feel I was losing control of the bike. I slowed to a crawl. I'd picked off loads of blokes on the climb and fully expected them to come zooming past me on the descent, but none of them did: we were obviously all taking it cautiously. No point risking a crash with only 5 miles left to go. As I got to the bottom and it flattened out alongside Llyn Peris, I saw a lady with a pink bib. She was 2 miles into the run at this point so I was able to calculate she must have been at least 30 minutes ahead. I didn't see any other ladies which encouraged me. 

Having chats with fellow competitors.... whilst overtaking them on hills!

A much swifter T2 (1:38, fastest of the day!) and I was now in my comfort zone: one foot in front of the other, doing what I love, in the place I love. I felt in control of my race for the first time and knew that I could now finish. The Legend does 2 run laps, up the long and steep zig-zag slate trails climb (I walked a lot of this, but not as much as everyone else did as I was picking people off the whole time now). Along the top, you run through the old abandoned quarry workings, frozen in time with the ruins of quarry workers bovvies, old rusting equipment and disused railcarts festooning the landscape. Then came the descent, through the wooded trails alongside the lake. Loving this bit, recalling my many runs from my time spent living here, I actually started to sing to myself (the Swedish entry for this year's Eurovision... don't judge me!), feeling happy for the first time since putting a toe into that freezing lake at 7am that morning! Through the lap checkpoint and my Mum and Moira are cheering me on and a marshal said she thought I was 1st lady (I knew this wasn't true, but as I had picked a lady off on lap 1 of the run, I wondered if I could now be in 2nd or 3rd... a podium position). Lap 2 and there was a little bit more walking up the slate inclines, but I maintained a decent pace on the other sections and, to say I have only done 3 runs at half marathon distance since 2013, I actually felt quite good! 

Passing the old quarry hospital with less than a mile to go, I could hear the announcer in the event field say, "And this is our 2nd female in the legend crossing the line", so I guessed I was 3rd. Able to relax and enjoy the descent, I glanced over towards Snowdon and to the Snowdon lady and thanked her for protecting me in the mountains today (old North Walian folklore, and she didn't always do enough to protect the Victorian quarry workers, but I thought I should tip her the nod). I crossed the line as 3rd lady and 1st vet. I was escorted straight off to the podium as they had been waiting for me to finish to do the prizes. I was just 5 minutes behind second place - all of which was frustratingly lost in T1, being unable to function; however, managing the tough conditions is all part of the event, and the lady who placed second did that far better than me, so deserved the placing - and a whopping 40 minutes behind first, who was just amazing across all 4 (yes, 4, you can lose a race in transition!) disciplines. A big hug from my Mum, Moira, Sian and Nigel and a handful of crisps stuffed down my gob - oooooh, the delectable saltiness of those crisps - and I felt fresh as a daisy! (A feeling that would soon wear off!) 

This has been a long post, and if you're still reading, congratulations. I mainly wrote it for myself, to document it for years to come. I also wrote it to officially note that if I ever feel the need to scratch the full Ironman itch, it will have to be scratched somewhere in the Mediterranean where conditions are much warmer. Unfortunately suffering in the cold is one of my areas of weakness, and one that I can't really do much about. On the flip side, I cope superbly with heat, so temperatures in the high 20s don't phase me!

Next up? Not entirely sure. Most immediate goal is to be able to walk normally again and go down staircases forwards, but after that, maybe just some lowkey running races. We'll see. I am happy to bask in the warm afterglow of this one for some time to come...